Public security

'Mini-Hiroshima' Expert warns of nuclear armageddon threat from airliner over UK city

A BOEING 737 enters UK airspace posing as a Russian civilian airliner, crossing Europe and the Channel without arousing any suspicion.

Once over British soil it heads for London, where it drops from its cruising altitude of 37,000ft to around 30,000ft before a nuclear device stored in the hold is detonated over the capital.

This is the terrifying sequence of events that aviation chiefs have been warned to protect against at an annual airport security conference in London.

Analysts studying emerging threats to UK air security believe an atomic bomb planted on a civilian airliner by a rogue or enemy state is a distinct possibility.